Memoriam
by CianLlyr
Summary: John's wish to celebrate his first Father's Day brings emotional turmoil for Delenn, whose father died estranged from her over the Earth-Minbari War. Did he ever forgive her, and how can she know?
1. Chapter 1

**Memoriam**

**Author's Note:** This story takes place around 2265, early in John and Delenn's residence on Minbar. The usual disclaimer with regard to Babylon 5 and its characters; they don't belong to me, but the words and theme of this story do. One incident referred to herein occurs in my B5 fanfic "novel," _What Is Built_, when Delenn—desperate to end the Earth-Minbari War after the failed peace mission—goes home to her father and is turned away. That incident is not part of the B5 canon, but I've chosen to build on it for _Memoriam_.

With regard to David's age, his first naming-day (at three days old) counts as one, which makes him the equivalent of a ten-month old.

**Part One**

"Ba," David Sheridan said, grinning up at his father. A cereal smear decorated one plump cheek, and in his upper gum John glimpsed the nub of an emerging tooth.

John tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Really? You don't say. I never would have guessed." He wiped the cereal from his son's face and kissed the top of his head, just below the bump of the vestigial bone crest beneath his coppery hair. The crest would grow as he aged, Delenn had said, with a serene smile in the face of his new-father panic when he first felt the lumpy spot. _He is a child of two worlds_, she'd reminded him then. _Human and Minbari. Part of us both_.

She always knew the right thing to say—to reassure him, make him laugh, make him think. There'd been times, during their first months on Minbar, when he'd badly needed all those things. He didn't regret moving here—he could never regret any part of his life with Delenn—but there was so much to get used to. Little things: summers that felt more like spring, mountains instead of flat farmland or skyscrapers outside the windows. That there _were_ windows and not viewports. Sunday mornings with no bacon next to his eggs. Heck, Sunday mornings that weren't even called _Sunday_, and came every nine days instead of every seven.

They'd worked out coffee with expensive but vital imports, and he'd adjusted to the slanted bed more quickly than he expected. _Helps to have incentive_, he thought, with a pleasant tingle running through him as he glanced over at Delenn. She was watching him with David, the look he loved best. Bright-eyed and content, as if all was right in her universe.

She caught his gaze and frowned, but with humor behind it. "I know that look on your face," she said, mock-scolding, then sighed. "Sadly, we are far too busy this morning to take advantage of it."

"Don't I know it." He lifted David out of his high chair. "Later?"

Her seductive smile was the only answer he needed.

David poked his nose. "Ba?"

John grabbed his son's hand and nuzzled it. "Da. Da-da?"

David grinned. "Ba. Ba-ba." He trailed off into baby babble, not a syllable of which was recognizable as anything like _Daddy_.

Delenn laughed. "Not even past his second naming-day, and already he has a mind of his own."

"Like his mother."

"Like his father." They shared an affectionate grin. Still holding David, he bent carefully down to kiss her.

As they parted, a wistful look crossed her face. She shook it off and resumed her habitual calm, but it seemed to him there was a faint shadow in it. He waited for her to say something—she generally did with him, when she needed to—but she kept silent as she rose from the breakfast table. "I am still working through the draft agreement for bringing the Rhivali into the Alliance," she said after a pause. "I expect it will take most of the morning to have anything worth looking over."

He remembered the Rhivali; they'd sent a delegation to Minbar a few months ago, petitioning for Alliance membership. Tall and thin, with feline eyes and lightweight pelts, they reminded him of elongated, bipedal house cats. Their tiny federation consisted of a homeworld and five colony planets, if he recalled correctly; they had minerals and medicinals to trade, and hoped to use their earnings to improve their colonies' infrastructure. They also had a clan hierarchy so convoluted it made Minbari internal politics look kindergarten-simple. Best to let Delenn take the first, and probably second and third, cracks at crafting a trade agreement that would fly with the Rhivali _and_ the other Alliance members. "I have meetings all morning. With Karrenn on David duty"—their son's nanny and a trained Ranger, a necessity given their responsibilities—"at least you'll have the study to yourself. I'll come find you when I'm finished. We can have lunch together. You'll need a break by then."

Her eyes sparkled, and he knew what she was thinking. Then he watched her tuck the thought away, with what looked like regret. The regret lingered, deepened, and again he thought she might speak of it—but then David reached for her, and the moment was lost. She took their son from him and brushed a kiss across David's forehead. "I will bring him to Karrenn. And I will see you at midday."

**ooOoo**

By the time they met again, over a simple lunch of reddish rice-like grain dotted with crisp chopped vegetables and a spicy sauce, he'd largely set aside those little wistful moments. If they meant anything important, Delenn would tell him eventually. After living among Minbari for nearly two Earth years, he'd grown more comfortable with indirection and silent waiting—though he reserved the right to push when necessary. Delenn knew him well enough to expect it, had even (he thought) come to rely on it at times. So he kept their conversation to shop talk, and made her laugh at a story about the hyper-dignified Drazi ambassador's first experience of snow. The ambassador had arrived two weeks ago, at the tag end of Minbar's winter, just in time to catch the last snowfall of the season a few days later. "Barefoot outside his residence, nothing warmer on him than his usual leather tunic and lightweight pants, staring up at the white stuff falling out of the sky and grinning like a kid at Christmas. They tell me he was dancing in it for awhile, until he figured out it was damned cold outside and maybe he should go warm up. Even then, they couldn't pry him away from the window. Wrapped up in three blankets, nose pressed to the glass, staring out at the snow until it got too dark to see anymore."

She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the giggles. "The poor man… I shouldn't laugh, he might have taken ill standing out in the cold like that… but what a sight it must have been. Dal Trkesh, of all people, dancing amid snowflakes. Oh, I _wish_ I had been there."

"I wish, too. I'd have paid for the privilege." He ate his last spoonful of sauce-covered grain, reassured at Delenn's good humor. Whatever was bothering her before, it was gone now. "Anyway, if you want me to look over that treaty, I have the afternoon." He grimaced. "Paperwork. My most favorite thing. You never told me there'd be so much of it in this job. Don't presidents usually get to delegate that stuff?"

"When they are willing to," she said, with a pointed look as she gathered up their empty bowls. "In this instance, _v'mai_, you have no one to blame but yourself."

He liked the way she did that—dropped endearments into their conversations, mostly in Adronado but occasionally in English. Sometimes he'd hear the word _darling_ come out of her mouth, or _v'mai_—my heart—come out of his, and it always gave him an extra thrill of warmth. It made him feel that much more married to her, this trading of affectionate expressions. An intimacy of words along with everything else they shared.

He helped clear the table and then followed her into their study, admiring the sway of her hips and the way her silk robe swirled around her delicate ankles. _Enough of that_, he told himself. He needed to concentrate on the Rhivali treaty, official letters, drafts of things that had come up in the morning's meetings and couldn't be put off while he indulged in daydreams. "I will send you the file," Delenn said as he fired up his datapad and seated himself on his side of the double desk that dominated the spacious room. Outside the window, positioned and sized for maximum light, the Suan'trai Mountains made a compelling backdrop for the crystal and stone spires of Tuzanor that reached up from the valley below.

They worked together in companionable quiet for the next few hours, trading drafts and revisions. A few times, he looked up from his work to see Delenn gazing out the window, her eyes fixed on the towering peak she called Grandmother Mountain. She loved that mountain, had taken him halfway up it to show him its beauties the day after their arrival. He eyed it himself awhile, but saw nothing in particular to hold her attention. She had that wistful look again, taking in the rust-red slope dotted with white snow-crust. Early spring was upon them now—still winter if you asked him, but Delenn thought nothing of going out for a walk in weather like this with no more than a light wool cloak over her shoulders. He wondered if she wanted to be out there now, away from the demands of work and duty. Just the two of them, hand in hand, climbing the mountain path amid the dormant _hala_ bushes that covered the slopes, breathing in the fresh, cold air that held promise of warmth to come.

He drew breath to ask her, then let it out. Her stillness told him her mood was more than wistfulness, or a desire to play hooky. Something was weighing on her. It came to him that she'd been like this for a couple of days last spring—quiet, weighed down. She'd said very little when he asked, just that she was tired and it was "a difficult time of year." The natural fatigue and fretfulness of her pregnancy's final weeks, he'd thought at the time, easily dispelled with hot tea and backrubs and cuddling. Now, he wondered if there was more to it.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said. Lightly, giving her room to decide how to respond.

She came back from wherever she'd been and managed a smile. "Your people have not used pennies for centuries."

"Perfectly good expression, though."

Her smile deepened. "So it is. But now is the time for work, not talking. I have been distracted long enough."

She turned back to the treaty draft._ Not ready yet_, he thought. That was all right. He could wait.

**ooOoo**

Late in the afternoon, as the drawing-on sunset struck gold from Tuzanor's spires, Karrenn brought David in with his favorite fluffy blanket and building blocks. After she left, John and Delenn stole a blissful hour on the floor with their boy, stacking the blocks in towers of two and three and four. When David first tried five blocks and they fell over, he made a puzzled noise, then gathered them up with a determined expression and started again. This time the tower stayed upright, barely. Enchanted, David waved a plump hand at it. "Ba," he said. "Ba nai." He looked at his parents and grinned. _Definitely a tooth coming_, John thought. "Ba _nai_," David said again, louder.

"Big," Delenn said softly. "_Ba'nai_ is 'big.'" She looked at John in wonder. "He said his first word."

"Well, I'll be damned." John knew how he must look right now, soft-eyed and sappy as a big teddy bear. Maybe it wasn't _Daddy_, or _Mommy_ for that matter, but a first word was a first word no matter what. He handed David a block and tickled his foot. "You smart little guy, you. That _is_ a big tower. Five blocks. Want to go for six?"

"Ba'_nai_," David said with enthusiasm, and set a sixth block atop the rest. The tower toppled, blocks scattering across the carpet. David's lip began to quiver.

"It's okay." One by one, John gathered the blocks. "Something doesn't go right the first time, you just try again." He set one block squarely in front of his son, then piled the rest between them. "Your turn. And then Mommy will do one, and we'll just keep going, huh?" He glanced up at Delenn as he spoke, and was startled at the expression on her face. She was gazing at David like she'd lost something, something precious she could never get back.

Sudden fear gripped him. Was something wrong with David, and she hadn't told him? No, there couldn't be. Any hint of that and Delenn would be in full-blown battle mode, ready to combat whatever dared threaten their beloved son's well-being. Not this quiet sorrow, like the drawing on of night. He took a calming breath and helped David steady his block, and as Delenn hesitantly added a third, it dawned on him what the problem might be. The more he considered it, the more certain he became. She was thinking of children, knowing David would be their only one. Wishing it were otherwise. But the odds against another were so huge as to be impossible. And they'd had their fair share of miracles already.

He set a fourth block in place, brushing her hand as he did so. Reminding her that he loved her, that they still had plenty left of their time together and a beautiful boy to share it with. He left the words themselves unspoken; it would hurt her to hear them said if she wasn't ready to say them. What she needed now was reassurance, and he had that in abundance. At least for the next eighteen-odd years.

**ooOoo**

Their cook, Jerelet, had left them an excellent supper before retiring to her small house nearby. Delenn regained her serenity as they ate, helping David with two bites for every one she took herself. "I'll clean him up," John said as they finished. David was a sight, both cheeks and most of his chin smeared with red sauce. Jerelet had taken to Earth's cuisines with enthusiasm, especially after a marathon lesson from a visiting Garibaldi in how to make the perfect marinara sauce.

The only clean spot on David's face was the end of his nose, on which Delenn dropped a kiss as she rose. "You clean him, I will clean the table."

"Deal," he said.

It took several minutes of gentle scrubbing, while David giggled and made ineffective attempts to grab and mouth the damp cloth, but eventually he was clean enough to pass muster. "There. Much better. No, don't eat that, you goon." He chuckled as he slipped the crumpled wet cloth from David's grasping fingers. "Hey, there's a nickname for you. Goon. David Goon Sheridan _ys_ Mir. How's that for a mouthful?"

"What is a 'goon,' exactly?" Delenn spoke from the doorway to the kitchen, where she leaned against the jamb watching them. She was doing a fair job of keeping a straight face, but couldn't entirely hide the merriment in her eyes. "I am not at all sure it sounds appropriate for the son of a dignitary."

"Two dignitaries. And might I remind you that yesterday morning, you ended up with cereal in your hair."

"True." Her gentle smile gave his heart a sweet ache. He loved her so much, and he loved being a father. It overwhelmed him sometimes, how necessary Delenn and David were to every breath he drew—but he wouldn't trade it for anything. He lifted his son and nuzzled him nose-to-nose. David giggled, and the sheer joy of the moment reminded John of something. He'd meant to tell Delenn earlier, but David and work and far too many lascivious thoughts of his wife had intervened.

"I was thinking," he said, as he settled David in his arms. "There's an Earth holiday coming up that I'd really like to celebrate. I worked out the calendar match, and it's tomorrow. There's nothing elaborate to do; usually just a nice family meal and good wishes. But I'd like to celebrate it. It'll be my first one, and… well, it means a lot."

As he'd expected, she looked charmed by the prospect of exploring a human custom she wasn't yet familiar with. "What is the holiday?"

"Father's Day." He glanced fondly down at David, who was tugging on his shirt and trying to pry a button off. "A day to honor fatherhood, the things fathers do for our children. There's a Mother's Day too… I didn't figure that one out in time, managed to miss it by two days, but… well, that's what the roses were for a few weeks ago. That and just because I love you."

"Father's Day," she said. Quietly, and too controlled.

He looked up. Her face was blank, as if she hurt somewhere and was fighting not to show it. God, what a stupid thing to bring up. Parenthood, when he knew what she'd been trying not to dwell on all day. "Delenn—" He glanced around for a place to set David down, so he could take her in his arms. Then David whimpered and crammed a fist against his mouth, pressing the upper gum where the new tooth was. Distracted, John shifted his attention toward soothing his son. He heard the rustle of silk, but by the time he looked up again, Delenn was gone.

**ooOoo**

She was meditating in the alcove by their bedroom when he went to find her, having settled David on the living-room floor with his fluffy blanket and blocks and anything potentially hazardous or breakable out of reach. Though most of the time he welcomed the evenings when the household staff diminished and it was just the three of them, tonight he found himself wishing Karrenn had stayed awhile. Delenn needed him, and so did David, and it was driving him crazy being pulled in two directions at once. He tried not to feel guilty as he moved away from the alcove. He shouldn't disturb her just yet. David would be in bed before long. Then he and Delenn could talk.

He spent another half-hour or so playing with David, then gave his son a quick bath, rubbed ointment on his gums and dressed him in his nightclothes. All the while, he listened for Delenn's light step in the hall, her gentle voice from the doorway. It was his turn to put their son to bed, but Delenn generally showed up about halfway through to watch and share the task. Tonight, no sign of her.

David was drowsy, half-asleep already. John carried him into the small bedroom adjacent to their own, settled with him and his blanket in the Earth-style rocking chair—a gift from John's parents—and sang every slow, sweet ballad he could think of until David's small body grew heavy with slumber. He kept singing even after David started snoring, waiting for Delenn to appear. Never once in David's short life had she let him go to sleep without a kiss.

When his arms threatened to go numb, he got up and gently placed his sleeping son in the hammock-like Minbari cradle. David snuffled softly and pulled his fluffy blanket against his nose. "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," John murmured. Funny, how accustomed he'd gotten to leaving off the _good night_ part after seeing Delenn flinch at it one too many times. _Custom of the country_, he thought with a wry smile, and went to find his wife.

**ooOoo**

She was still in the meditation alcove, kneeling by the low-burning candle with her shoulders slumped, gazing down at something in her hands. Her posture alone was alarming, even without what had gone before. Delenn never slumped, not like this. She always held herself with… not pride, but something else that kept her spine straight and her shoulders high. A vitality born of hope, of a bedrock conviction that every day held something of worth in it and should be met as if it mattered. That vitality was nowhere in evidence now. She looked drained and exhausted. He felt a pang, watching her. Did she grieve that much for the children they wouldn't have, and he'd never noticed until now? What a blind fool he'd been. Assuming that because he was okay with just David, she was too.

He moved quietly into the room and sat next to her, close enough that they touched. She stirred, acknowledging his presence, though she did not look up. He glanced at what she held and was surprised by what he saw. It was a portrait, colored inks on an oval of pale stone, as finely done as a Renaissance miniature. The subject was a Minbari man of late middle age, with lean and handsome features that spoke of intelligence and easy humor. The eyes were like Delenn's, gray-green and full of light.

Apprehension tightened his gut. Whatever was troubling Delenn, it wasn't children. It was something else entirely.

He touched her hand, indicating the portrait. "Your dad?" he said softly.

She nodded. In the alcove's low light, he saw her eyes were glistening. When she spoke, her voice was rough. "He has been gone a long time."

The anguish in her words made his throat ache. He wanted to hold her, help her somehow, but her brittle grip on the remnants of composure left him uncertain. He sensed she both wanted and didn't want to face what lay on her heart.

"You must miss him," he said. Easing into it, giving her space.

She nodded again. He raised a hand and stroked her back. She relaxed under his touch. He thought of a wild creature, wary of what it approached. He kept stroking, slow and steady.

"Tomorrow is his naming-day," she said finally. "His eighty-fourth." A sigh escaped her. "So many naming-days gone…" Her fingers brushed the painted face as if it were alive. "I wish he were still here, so he could see…"

"See David?" He moved his hand upward and gently massaged her neck.

She swallowed and bent her head. "David. You. Us. Everything in the time since his passing." She drew a shaky breath. A tear fell on the stone and left a small, damp mark.

He wrapped her in his arms then and pressed his lips to her hair. To hell with indirection and waiting. "Tell me."

Haltingly, she managed. The Earth-Minbari War that broke her father's heart and left them estranged. Her desperate trip home after the failed peace mission, the faint hope that her father could somehow help her find a way to end the slaughter her words had started. His own harsh words to her instead, delivered on his doorstep. "I should have told him my heart had changed. But I—" She raised a trembling hand and wiped her wet cheek. "I was too proud. Too hurt, that he thought me lost in my hatred. Even though he could not have known any differently unless I said." She was tense now, one hand a fist, the other gripping the portrait. "So I went away. Walked away from him in the snow and cold. I kept thinking he would call me back, but… And then he was gone to Yedor, and not long after that he died, and it was too late, too late…"

"Poor love." He held her as she wept, her tears wetting his shirt collar.

"I loved him so much," she said, her voice cracking as she struggled for words. "I wish I had spoken. I wish he could see, could know… I am still the daughter he raised, I always was, it was only a moment of madness that ever made me anything else…"

"Shhh. It's all right." It wasn't, but he didn't know what else to say, and his soothing tone seemed to help. Gradually she quieted, her sobs turning to hiccupping breaths and then slowly smoothing out. She sniffed, swallowed, wiped her eyes. Before she could ask, he dug a handkerchief out of his pants pocket and handed it to her. She managed a chuckle, still shaky, and dabbed her face with it.

"So undignified," she murmured, with a ragged attempt at humor. "Why do we cry, when it is such a messy business?"

"Because we need to." He waited a beat, then went on in a lighter tone. "Or because the Universe has a quirky sense of humor."

She gave a real laugh at that. Then her face crumpled, and she hid it against his shoulder. "I'm sorry for all this… but when you spoke of your Father's Day, I was thinking of him, and it was too much, just too much…"

"It's okay." He stroked her hair until she calmed again, then tipped her chin up so he could look her in the eye. "You know, I think he _does_ know. About everything. Wherever that place is, the place where no shadows fall… I bet once you get there, everything comes clear. He loved you; just from what little you've told me about him, I know that. If he could talk to you right now from where he is, I bet he'd tell you he loves you still. I bet he'd tell you he never stopped, even when it seemed like it."

She held his gaze, apparently absorbing what he'd said. "I wish I knew for certain," she said finally. Small-voiced, like a child.

There was no answer to that. Except to hold her some more, and tell her he loved her, and hope that might almost be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Memoriam, Part Two**

Delenn woke at dawn, her bladder full and her breasts heavy beneath her night-dress. David would wake soon, hungry and needing his milk. He would be fully weaned by his second naming-day, in the Greening Moon. Not so long off now. The thought made her sad, and for a moment she had to fight not to cry.

Beside her, John stirred and muttered, then subsided. She slipped from beneath the blankets and went to take care of the most urgent business, then padded back into the bedroom. David's sleepy burble reached her, the sound he always made as he slowly surfaced from dreams. She turned toward his small sleeping-room, then halted, caught by the landscape outside the window. Grandmother Mountain loomed large and dark, the only color in it a hint of pink at its summit. The color would creep downward as the sun rose higher, setting the snow at the peak ablaze and striking sparks from the veins of crystal barely visible through the _hala_ that covered the lower slopes.

How often had she seen a view just like this, in the little house where she grew up? Awake in the early morning, creeping into the sitting-room to watch the dawn fire light the sky. Her father there already, watching the sky himself as if he sought some secret in it. His drawn face lightening at the sight of her, his warm smile beckoning her over. Nestling close beside him at the window that faced the mountain—just the two of them, welcoming the morning while Mayan slept.

One hand went to the back of her neck, seeking momentary comfort in the silky weight of her hair. She should light a candle for her father today, at the temple in Tuzanor. A ritual as familiar as breathing, lighting memory-candles on the naming-days of the dead. The thought should have brought solace, but it didn't. _I am home, Ava'mai. Home where your ashes are. Yet you still seem so far away…_

She walked up to the window and pressed her palm against the glass. Cold seeped into her skin, but the rose-gold fire spreading down the mountain told her the day would be a fine one. She knew what she was looking for now, though she wouldn't see it from this far. Not that she needed to. She knew exactly where it was. Even after all her long cycles away, she still knew every fold of the slopes, every ridge and hollow. She'd explored them often enough—alone, or with Mayan, or with her father. He had showed her a spring once, where no water ever tasted sweeter. Another time, a patch of pale blue moonflowers that bloomed every three cycles, and then only in one spot. "Here is a treasure, Delenn," he had said, as they knelt at the edge of the flower patch and breathed in the blossoms' delicate scent. "Do you know why?"

"Because they're pretty?" she'd said.

"Because they are not always here." His quiet voice held yearning, though she hadn't recognized it then. "Some things are only ours for a little while, _mai'le_. Which means we should cherish them all the more."

David was awake now, singing to himself. She should go to him before he started fussing, but she stood for one last moment gazing out at the mountain.

_Yes_, she thought, and turned away to fetch her son.

**ooOoo**

It felt good to be out on the mountainside, good to breathe the crisp clean air that smelled of fresh damp soil. Delenn loved the scents of early spring, when new growth lay hidden under the old—barely visible as the snows receded, but detectable to senses other than the eye. The idea still charmed her, that things unseen could be felt if one paid close enough attention. _Ava'mai_ had taught her that, along with so much more.

Her throat tightened at the thought of her father. She walked faster up the slope, trying to lose herself in the rhythm of walking. The satchel she carried bumped against her hip. Inside the satchel was a small lighter and a memory-candle in a capped glass holder. It would have been easier, and perhaps more sensible, to go to the temple in Tuzanor—but she had lit a candle there last spring, too heavy with child to even think of a jaunt up the mountain, and she had felt no sense of her father then. She needed to feel some sense of him, needed it as roots in winter's hibernation needed water and warmth to revive.

John had understood. He always did, which was part of why she loved him. "Take all the time you need," he'd said, when she told him where she was going this morning and why. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No, _v'mai_," she had said, though touched by the offer. "I must do this on my own."

He'd cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. "Okay. And don't worry about this morning's meeting. If you're not back by the time Dal Trkesh shows up, I'll hold him off. Smooth his feathers. Wait, Drazi don't have feathers. That's hope, the thing with feathers, isn't it?"

His clowning had made her smile in spite of the shadow on her heart. How her father would have loved John. And David. And the human custom of Father's Day—but she couldn't think of that just now. It hurt too much. Cycle after cycle since his passing, she had lit memory-candles for her father—yet never, not even last spring in Tuzanor, had she felt close to him. That was the point of the ritual, to bring a loved one close again… yet she had not managed it, not once in all this time. Eighteen naming-days since he died, eighteen candles. Eighteen markers of absence.

She blinked back tears and gazed up the slope. She was halfway to the spot she sought; another quarter-hour's walk should bring her there. She gripped the satchel tighter, settled her woolen cloak more comfortably around her shoulders, and kept going.

**ooOoo**

"I am sorry, Mr. President." Dal Trkesh's aide, Mrkev, spoke over the comm screen with the smoothness of long practice at his job. "I am afraid we must cancel today's meeting, as Ambassador Trkesh remains indisposed. An unfortunate consequence of admiring the snowfall for a bit too long several days ago." The slight sardonic tone in his voice was barely perceptible, except to those who knew him well. Which John did, Mrkev having served as diplomatic liaison to the Alliance for most of the past two years. The Drazi had sent three ambassadors during that time, of which Dal Trkesh was the latest. Minbar's climate was tough on Drazi, desert-adapted as they were. Mrkev, oddly, seemed to thrive on it. "May we reschedule at your earliest convenience, yours and Entil'zha Delenn's?"

"By all means." John felt relieved; there would be no feather-smoothing needed today. "I'll let our aides know, and you can talk scheduling with them. And please pass on to Ambassador Trkesh our best wishes for a swift recovery. I'm told Drazi tolerate _r'fani_ tea quite well; it's good for congestion and sore throats, especially with wildflower honey."

"The healers have made certain we are well supplied with both. For which the ambassador will, I am sure, eventually be most grateful." The glimmer of humor was more apparent now. An explosive sneeze echoed from somewhere in the background, followed by loud lamenting in one of the four Drazi languages. Mrkev glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to John. "If you will excuse me… and please let your aides know I will contact them shortly. My regards to Entil'zha Delenn."

John thanked him and they signed off. Then he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. No meeting, Delenn gone walkabout, David was in Karrenn's capable hands, and John had nothing to do. Except paperwork. Despite his wife's gentle teasing, he did delegate what he could, yet there was still no end to the damned stuff. "If I'd known…" he murmured as he prowled around the study. There _was_ that Rhivali trade agreement to work on… no, he'd best not touch that until Delenn came back and they could bounce ideas off each other. In dealing with the Rhivali and their complicated social structure, he trusted her instincts more than his own.

He halted in his prowling and looked out the window at the towering bulk of Grandmother Mountain. He wondered where Delenn was out there, exactly, and if she'd done what she needed to. It broke his heart, the story she'd told last night. Clearly she'd been close to her father, as close as he was to his own. _If Dad died so estranged from me… I don't think I could take it. _Yet she'd lived with it for years, a wound still unresolved. Her courage astonished him, as it always did when he thought about it. Yet a small part of him sometimes wished she were a little less brave, or at least more willing to lean on him when she could.

_Just as well she isn't_, came the unwelcome thought. _Eighteen, nineteen years from now, I'll be gone…_

He turned abruptly away from the window, just as a racket erupted in the hallway. He recognized David's voice, a gleeful wordless shout. And Karrenn: "No, David! Not without your clothes!" Running footsteps, a baby shriek, then Karrenn's laughter interspersed with David's giggles. "Naughty boy! You need to be dry and dressed. You'll catch a terrible cold, and your poor nose will plug up, and no one will get any sleep at night, and what will your _Ava_ and _Oma_ say then? Hmmm?"

Suddenly, he knew what he wanted to do. It _was_ Father's Day, after all, he told himself as he left the room and went to find his son.

**ooOoo**

The marker stone was a little more weathered, but aside from that the patch of ground where the moonflowers grew looked the same as ever. There were no moonflowers now, of course. They blossomed near summer every third cycle, and Delenn knew they would not bloom again until two more springs had passed.

She stood facing the marker and breathed the mountain air. It smelled of damp soil and growing things, even if all she could see was the withered brown of winter bracken and the rust-red leaves of slumbering _hala_. The _hala_ bushes' sweet-spice aroma was muted, a subtle under-note beneath wet earth and snowmelt. Though she knew it was folly, she found herself half-expecting the delicate scent of moonflowers. How old was she the first time her father showed her this little field, full of tiny blue blossoms? Seven cycles, perhaps eight. No more than that. A fierce longing to see her father again, to hear his voice, made the back of her throat feel tight. She took a calming breath, deep and slow, and knelt by the marker stone.

The bracken had covered the small recess at its base where the memory-candle should go. Working carefully, dislodging only as much growth as necessary, she cleared the recess, then took the candle out of her satchel and set it in place. The lighter came next, a slender tube enameled in deep blue and silver. _The colors of memory and silence_, she thought. _I have too much of both_.

It was harder than she expected to light the candle and chant the opening lines of the remembrance prayer. She had come here hoping for some connection with her father, some sense of his presence in this place they both loved. But there was nothing of him here, save the marker stone and her own knowledge of his ashes long since mingled with this spot. He had gone beyond her long ago. He was in his next incarnation, or in the place where no shadows fall. Why had she hoped otherwise?

She thought of what John had said, and closed her eyes. _I think he does know. About everything_, John had told her. He had meant it to comfort her, but in a way it only deepened her desolation. _She_ wanted to know that what John said was true. She needed her father to tell her, and he couldn't.

She opened her eyes and stared at the candle, its tiny flame shielded from the wind by the curving glass holder that surrounded it. The sight of the flame calmed her a little, and after a while she began to speak. "You have a grandson, _Ava'mai_," she said softly. "His name is David. A human name, for a human child. Human and Minbari, a living bridge between our worlds." She felt herself smiling, though her throat still ached and her eyes stung. "A truer bridge than I am, for all that I followed Valen's prophecy. And his father…" She swallowed hard. "I wish you could know John. I love him so much… and he is human, too. I don't hate them anymore, _Ava'mai_. I never did, not really. I only thought I did, and by the time I knew differently it was too late…" Her voice was shaking now, and a tear dampened her cheek. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I should have spoken, should have made you understand… but I was proud, and afraid, and I couldn't do it. And then you were gone, beyond any word I might have said. Beyond everything."

Roughly, she wiped her face. The wind ruffled her hair. She stood slowly and laid a hand against the marker stone. It was cold, its surface slick with dew left over from early morning. "_Ava'mai_… I wish I could know that you forgive me."

She stayed motionless for several minutes, waiting… hoping?... for something she couldn't define. But there was nothing except silence and the emptiness around her. With a sharp sigh, she let her hand fall and turned away.

A sudden gust whipped at her hair and cloak. Panic jolted through her—_the candle will go out_!—and she turned abruptly back toward the marker stone. The flame guttered in its holder. Swiftly, Delenn knelt and shielded it with both hands until the wind died down. In its wake came the unmistakable scent of moonflowers.

She kept her hands cupped over the candle-holder while her stunned mind tried to work out what was happening. The wind came again, gentler this time, and stirred a piece of bracken near one side of the marker stone. Beneath the winter-brown growth, Delenn caught a glimpse of pale blue.

Heart beating faster, she reached out and pushed the bracken aside. Under it was a single moonflower, three blossoms on its slender stem, two half-open and one a delicate bud. Her hand drifted downward, brushed the flower. Its petals felt smooth under her fingers.

She let out a breath and sank down amid the wet bracken to stare at the flower. Two months and two springs early. An impossibility, yet there it was.

Like dawn over the mountain, she felt her heart slowly lighten. After awhile she rose, not bothering to brush the bracken off her cloak, and bowed deeply to the marker stone and its delicate companion. Then she turned and started down the mountain.

**ooOoo**

Halfway home, she saw them—John's broad-shouldered figure striding up the path, David perched in his arms. The breeze carried their voices to her, John singing a favorite walking song, David joining in with his lilting _ba-ba-ba_. Longing gave wings to her feet; she hurried toward them.

John's face lit up at the sight of her, a look that always made her heart skip beats. As she reached them, David lurched toward her, chubby arms out. She took him and held him tight, burying her nose in his silky, sweet-smelling hair. John's arms encircled them both. They stood there for a timeless moment, a family bound in love.

"All right?" John murmured in her ear.

"Yes." She was, though she didn't know how to explain. It was the kind of conversation that went best with a comfortable place to sit by a fire and hot cups of tea at hand. "I will tell you everything later, while David sleeps." She shifted their son in her arms, settling him more securely. Such an everyday act, a blessing of the ordinary. And more precious to her than ever, after what she'd seen by the marker stone. Her father was not gone. He was in her heart, and had found a way to tell her so.

The breeze rose again, laced with moisture and a hint of moonflowers. John pulled the thick cloak he wore tighter around himself. "Damn, that's a cold wind. Let's go home where it's warmer, huh?"

"It's a spring wind," she said, laughing. Giddy with the scent of the flowers, what it meant. "Not so cold as all that. And there is sunlight in it, and growing things. Can you smell it?"

He took a deep breath and smiled as they headed down the mountain. "Reminds me of the farm back in Iowa. Same time of year, early spring. Nothing in the fields but black dirt and the ragged ends of last year's dead cornstalks, yet you just knew everything was getting ready to burst out growing as soon as it warmed up." He navigated around a rough patch in the path, then helped her and David past it. "My dad has a great way of describing it. He says it smells like hope."

Hope. She liked the thought. The moonflower, with its open blossoms and single bud, came to mind. Her own sign of hope, her personal miracle.

"So," she said, as they continued homeward. "Tell me what you two have been doing all morning. I want to hear everything."

He chuckled. "You would not believe what your son has been up to…"

She followed him down the path and through the gate into their back garden, listening and laughing at his description of David's antics. How her father would have loved this child. For the first time since his passing, the thought of him brought no pain. Only the gentler loss of love remembered, delicate as the blossom by his marker stone.


End file.
